News & Events

Prize Savings, a Prize-Linked Savings feature on the Walmart Prepaid MoneyCard, has won the Best Prepaid Incentive Program Award at the 2017 Pay Awards. The results are the combination of votes from the expert judging panels and the aggregated results of online voting. This year, more than 33,000 vo…

Commonwealth’s work to use prizes to motivate saving has led to $185 million being saved, mostly by financially vulnerable people, in the last 8 years. The chance to win a prize has proven time and time again to be an effective motivator for people to save, allowing them to begin to build fina…

Commonwealth and America Saves are thrilled to announce Ivonne Sonato-Vega of Santa Rosa, Calif. as the 2017 winner of SaveYourRefund’s $25,000 Grand Prize Photo Contest.
The SaveYourRefund campaign encourages savings at tax time by offering chances at cash prizes for filers who save at least…

Managing personal finances can be stressful, intimidating, and at times simply mystifying. What if gaining financial knowledge, building self-confidence, and taking positive financial action could be as fun and engaging as playing a video game? At Commonwealth, we believe that tools that use fun to …

Following the Aspen Institute Summit on Inequality & Opportunity, Commonwealth’s Executive Director Tim Flacke shared thoughts on how our work is expanding opportunity and addressing inequality. Aspen Institute has posted Tim’s piece on their blog, addressing the problem that many Am…

At Commonwealth, we're exploring whether the upcoming minimum wage increase that will impact 13 million employees can be used as an opportunity to encourage employees to start saving and build financial security. There is a great deal of research that shows that emp…

You’ve probably heard that “an apple a day keeps the doctor away,” but why are there are so few simple, effective messages about your finances?
Credit unions can build a better relationship with their members by offering these sorts of simple, actionable messages to guide and simp…

The Ford Foundation published a guest post on their blog, written by Commonwealth Executive Director Timothy Flacke, about the launch of Prize Savings, the first nationwide Prize-Linked Savings (PLS) product on a prepaid card designed by Commonwealth in partnership with Walmart and Green Dot Bank.
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At the start of a new administration, we are surrounded by change and uncertainty, with more to come. Much of this change is threatening - to our mission, to the people we aim to support, and to our values.
Some things, however, have not changed: tens of millions of financially vulnerable peop…

Walmart and Green Dot in partnership with Commonwealth today announced the introduction of “Prize Savings,” a Prize-Linked Savings (PLS) incentive program available to the millions of Walmart MoneyCard-holders.
“According to The Federal Reserve Board of Governors, nearly half of a…

Commonwealth has launched a new website for Financial Entertainment, a suite of online and mobile financial education video games that teach users concepts including retirement, budgeting, debt repayment, savings, and more.
While the site’s front end provides a better user experience and desi…

Prize Savings, a Prize-Linked Savings (PLS) feature of Walmart’s MoneyCard prepaid card, is now available across the country. This means millions of people nationwide now have access to a fun, engaging and rewarding way to build emergency savings.
“We saw a growing crisis in the US arou…